Recently, with development of digital technologies, various user devices which can perform communication and personal information processing (e.g., a mobile communication terminal, a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), an electronic organizer, a smart phone, a tablet Personal Computer (PC), and the like) have come to market. Such user devices have reached a mobile convergence stage of encompassing an area of other terminals without being confined to their own traditional unique areas. For example, user devices may be provided with various functions including a call function such as a voice call and a video call, a message transmission/reception function such as a Short Message Service (SMS), a Multimedia Message Service (MMS), and an e-mail, a navigation function, a photography function, a broadcast reproduction function, a media (a video and music) reproduction function, an internet function, a messenger function, a Social Networking Service (SNS) function, and the like.
Under the concept of multitasking, the aforementioned functions simultaneously reside in a memory (e.g., a Random Access Memory (RAM)) in an independent process form, and may perform required operations, alternately occupying the Central Processing Unit (CPU). At this time, users may have an effect of simultaneously performing several functions on a front or rear surface of a user device screen. For example, it is possible for a user to enjoy music while downloading a high-capacity game software from a market software and in addition to reading e-mail. A high capacity of available memory may be required for maintaining the user an agreeable multitasking experience and preventing functions from being suspended due to a deficiency in memory.
Meanwhile, the user devices can manage memory at an Operating System (OS) level. For example, the user devices can manage a predetermined number of background processes at the operating system level. According to an embodiment, a specific number of background processes (e.g., fifteen or twenty four background processes) are determined for various tasks operating in the user devices, and the user devices can manage the determined number of background processes at the operating system level.
In the existing user devices, the determined number of background processes should always be used. Accordingly, when a large-sized (high-capacity) memory is loaded in the user devices, a number of areas in the memory are not used and thus, the memory may be inefficiently operated. Furthermore, when a small-sized (low-capacity) memory is loaded in the user devices, a deficiency in memory is caused by a large number of background processes and thus, the reaction of the user devices is not agreeable and the user devices may be slow or malfunction. Through the memory management techniques in the existing user devices, anticipated multitasking functions and performances can be obtained by allowing the determined number of background processes to reside in the memory. However, due to the fixed number of background processes, the memory (e.g., RAM) cannot be more efficiently used and the capacity of a hardware memory device should be raised in some cases.